ORLANDO, Fla. — How do you decipher a defeat like that? How do you resolve or bemoan or even fall asleep at night after a loss in which it felt like everything went wrong — every bounce skipping in the opposite direction, every call going the other way, every step forward landing on uneven ground?

“I’m not frustrated,” Cincinnati Bearcats head coach Mick Cronin said afterward. “I just don’t like to lose.”

That’s as sensible an explanation as one could expect from UC’s 58-55 loss at Central Florida, a game in which the Bearcats shot 37 percent from the field, 50 percent from the free-throw line and lost the rebounding battle by seven, yet still had an open look at a 3-point attempt as time expired that would have sent the game into overtime. Instead, Cane Broome’s final heave fell just short, taking Cincinnati’s shot at an outright regular-season American Athletic Conference title down with it.